The ability of the ruling Civic Platform to remain in office—the first Polish government to be re-elected since 1989—has less to do with its own strength, but rather in the complete lack of alternatives and the bankruptcy of the political establishment.

Bronislaw Komorowski, the candidate of the governing conservative Civic Platform (PO) party was able to win 52.6 percent of the vote in the second round of the Polish presidential election held on Sunday.

Poland’s late president Lech Kaczynski, who died Saturday in a plane crash, was a loyal representative of the country’s ruling elite and sought to establish authoritarian forms of rule based on reactionary Polish chauvinism.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski and dozens of other government officials died Saturday in a plane crash near Smolensk in western Russia, where they were traveling to a joint commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the World War II Katyn massacre.

Olivier Besancenot’s participation in the European election congress of the Polish Party of Labour (PPP) last weekend makes clear the real aims of his newly founded Anti-Capitalist Party (Parti Anticapitaliste).

Besancenot in Poland

In a speech given in Katowice, Poland, the head of the NPA (New Anti-capitalist Party) justified his alliance with a group that has no connection with socialism and which includes openly right-wing forces.